


In Defense of Vanilla

by wreckingthefinite



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Belly Kink, Belly Rubs, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Comfort Food, Feeding Kink, Food Porn, M/M, Pining Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, chubby bucky, slight future fic?, the red henley of doom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-19 23:31:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5984557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckingthefinite/pseuds/wreckingthefinite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky likes ice cream.  Steve likes Bucky.  It's all very complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story originated out of a conversation on Tumbler with [DelightfulExcess](http://www.delightfulexcess.tumblr.com) after the Cap3 Superbowl spot came out and we all lost our shit. I'm anticipating a 5-10 chapter arc, depending on how things shake out, and I will update weekly, I suspect.

Steve is a fucking pervert, and he feels absolutely terrible about it.

His best goddamn friend in the whole world, the one person who knows Steve completely, knows him and loves him and would do anything for him, till the end of the line, is finally back. He’s back from hell, from decades of being treated as a tool, a war machine, a thing, and he needs a friend, some support, and all Steve can do is fucking objectify the man. 

He’s disgusted with himself. 

But he can’t seem to stop. Can’t stop staring at Bucky’s shoulders, his chest, his waist, at how fucking _big_ he is, and Jesus, do you know how often Captain fucking America gets to feel small? Never. 

Steve Rogers used to feel small all the time. 

And he had hated it, then. Hated every moment of it except when he was with Bucky, when Bucky would throw a lazy arm over his shoulders, or curl up against him on a cold night in their apartment. Wrap his arms around Steve as they slept, Steve’s crooked back pulled up close to Bucky’s chest, to the little secret softness of Bucky’s tummy that he’d kept right up until the war had stolen it from him, like it had stolen everything. Back then, next to Bucky, Steve would feel small and it was okay. More than okay. It was safe. Warm. Good. Everything that he wanted. 

And now he never feels small, never feels much of anything except Captain America Feelings—which, most days, are just righteous anger and a constant low-grade desire to punch someone who deserves it. Until now, that is. Now he feels small again—now that Bucky is back and he’s somehow still big, bigger than Steve, still larger than life in every way that counts and in all the ways that Steve can’t quite articulate. 

It’s been six months since Steve got Bucky back, and he’s been ogling the man pretty much the entire time. Staring at the way his shirts pull across his chest. The way his shoulders—flesh and metal both—are a bit too broad for all of his jackets, so that he always looks a little uncomfortable in them. 

And—fuck Steve sideways, this is the worst best part—the way that sweet softness around Bucky’s belly is back, like before the war, only bigger, only attached to a supersoldier’s body this time. Every time Bucky sits down, an inch or two of pudge—nothing, really, but god it’s everything to Steve—spills over his waistband, a perfect little pooch of chubbiness on that muscular frame. 

Steve is absolutely beside himself. And Bucky— _poor, traumatized Bucky_ , Steve keeps reminding himself—just makes the whole fucking thing worse. It’s like the man purposely sets out to drive Steve to distraction. The tight t-shirts. Or worse, the fucking shirtlessness, the absolute and total lack of modesty. The gratuitous food consumption—cheeseburgers, French fries, every sort of fast food known to man, huge slices of pizza shining with grease, takeout containers of Italian food, leaning towers of lasagna and golden calzones—all of it makes its way into Steve’s apartment and down Bucky’s throat. 

It’s a perfect hell. Steve is living in a purgatory of his own making, where he can neither avoid seeing it nor manage not to react to it. 

*

Steve is on pins and needles, waiting for Bucky to return to the apartment. He’s just now started going out on his own, little forays into the city by himself. Steve is so proud of him. Blown away by Bucky’s durability, by all the progress he’s made in these six months, from sullen and silent Winter Soldier to a man who—sometimes, at least a little—resembles the Bucky Barnes Steve once knew. And yes, this version of Bucky is also a remorseless killer, often baffled by things that should have been self-evident, like morality and basic questions of right and wrong—but still, a reasonable facsimile of Bucky Barnes. 

For Steve, it is more than enough. 

When the door to the apartment finally opens, it’s nearly 9:00 and Steve is out of his mind, blatantly pacing from the living room to the kitchen and back again. 

“Okay there?” Bucky asks, taking in Steve’s tense posture and obviously reading it for what it is. 

“Uh—yeah, yeah, of course,” Steve says, because he can’t say, “Oh thank god you made it home, I was so worried that something would happen to you, invincible cyborg assassin o’ mine.” 

“Relax, Steve,” Bucky says, striding into the living room. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed since the 1930s—that patented Bucky strut, all rolling hips and swagger. He did it when he was picking up girls at the dance hall, when he was marching off to whatever godforsaken shithole in Europe, and when he was dealing out death as Hydra’s favorite weapon. It had made Steve ache every time, too. 

He sits down, depositing two paper sacks of Thai food onto the coffee table and then flopping back against the couch, running his metal hand through his hair. “You hungry? I got pad thai.” 

“You get that a lot,” Steve says, off-hand. 

“Only thing on the menu I know how to pronounce,” Bucky says, shrugging. “That and spring rolls.” 

Steve nods, smiling a little. In spite of himself, Steve lets his eyes wander down to Bucky’s waist, where his red henley—his ridiculously tight red henley, and where did that thing even come from, it has _never_ fit, not six months ago and certainly not now—is clinging perfectly to the soft curve of his belly. 

Steve sits down, digging through a bag and pulling out several enormous containers of pad thai. “Those are yours,” Bucky says, gesturing to the packages Steve is holding. Then he digs a couple more out for himself, props his feet—boots and all—onto the coffee table, and digs in. 

When Bucky polishes off the containers on his lap, Steve hands over at least half of his own. Bucky accepts it without comment, eating with a sort of mechanical efficiency. Steve eyes him, trying to ascertain if Bucky is enjoying it, taking pleasure in it, or just doing it. 

It’s a little hard to tell, honestly. Sometimes he’s more Winter Soldier than others. However Bucky feels about it, the upshot is that his stupid fucking henley is stretched even more tightly over his belly by the time he finishes. 

Steve excuses himself for bed early, for another night of fevered, guilt-ridden jerking off. 

Fucking Bucky. Fucking stupid shirt. Fuck. 

*

Steve thinks Bucky is about halfway broken, Bucky is fairly certain. He knows this from the way Steve looks at him, pretty-boy face all screwed up with concern, like Bucky might be dying of cancer. 

Bucky isn’t sure how to respond to it, just like he isn’t sure how to respond to a lot of things, now. Before Hydra—well, before Hydra is blurry at best. And while he was _there_ , while he was the Winter Soldier? Then, he didn’t really have to respond. He had missions. He had objectives. He did his job with brutal, emotionless accuracy. And no one was concerned.

But now, here with Steve, he is suddenly the subject of intense caring and scrutiny, and Bucky has no idea what to do with it. 

He also isn’t sure what the appropriate response is when you know that your best friend wants to fuck you. 

But that is the current situation. That much, Bucky knows. 

He knows they never fucked, before. All the same, he knows that Steve wants him, now. And maybe Steve wanted him before, too—Bucky can’t remember, doesn’t know if he ever knew. 

Steve is easy to read, his handsome face like an open book, most of the time. Bucky knows that Steve’s pupils dilate around Bucky, that Steve’s eyes follow him around the room. He knows that Steve gets incredibly anxious when Bucky goes out alone, and he knows that Steve tries to hide that anxiety whenever he can. 

He doesn’t know how to proceed with this information, though. 

As the asset, sometimes his missions required him to be sexually available to a target, to read sexual intent. Like everything else he did for Hydra, he was very good at it. He could be good at it now, too.

If Steve was a target, if this was a mission, Bucky would just follow Steve right into his bedroom, where Bucky _knows_ with unerring predatory instinct that Steve is jerking off. He’d just walk right in, climb into bed with him, be done with it. 

Except Steve isn’t a mission. Not anymore.

So Bucky pretends he doesn’t know Steve is jerking off in the next room. Instead, he wanders into the kitchen and fishes a container of ice cream out of the freezer. Steve buys plain vanilla bean, smooth and creamy and simple. Bucky has gone with him to the grocery; he’s seen how much is available, a whole wall of freezers full of every flavor imaginable. It’s weirdly endearing that Steve buys vanilla anyway. 

Bucky ends up finishing off the carton, sitting on the couch. He’s not hungry—but it’s good, and it _feels_ good, eating just for the hell of it. 

His stomach hurts by the time he goes to bed, but he doesn’t mind. Sleep doesn’t always come easy—hasn’t, since 1941—but a full belly helps. He curls up in Steve’s spare bedroom, his big body pulled small and tight in the fetal position, cradling his swollen tummy. 

*

Steve knows Bucky is eating—like, eating a lot. He knows because he does the grocery shopping, so he knows exactly how much food is disappearing from his kitchen, and at what rate. He knows that Bucky likes salt and vinegar potato chips enough to finish off a bag in one evening, but that he ate one Dorito—one single chip—and put the bag right back in the pantry, never to touch it again. He knows that Bucky likes awful microwavable shit, like single serve burritos and fish sticks, and would probably subsist on that dreck a good deal of the time if Steve didn’t cook or suggest takeout. 

He knows that Bucky can take down a carton of ice cream in two nights. 

And Jesus fucking Christ, that shouldn’t be sexy, but it _is_ , and Steve cannot stop thinking about it. 

Which is probably why, finally, Steve decides to sort-of-accidentally-but-actually-totally-deliberately get up to get a drink of water tonight and catch Bucky on the couch, ice cream carton in hand. 

Steve’s been in bed maybe half an hour when he decides to get up, and he knows Bucky is still awake, still in the living room. In fact, Steve’s almost one hundred percent certain that he heard Bucky open the freezer just a few minutes after Steve went into his room. 

When he pads out into the living room, he’s not surprised in the least to find Bucky sprawled out the length of the couch, carton of ice cream balanced in his metal hand, scraping the bottom of the container with a spoon. 

He’s not surprised, but it still takes his breath away. Bucky looks—he looks so achingly, painfully _good_. His face is tilted down, peering into the carton, and the pose highlights the softness around his jaw that you could probably call a double chin, if you wanted to be technical about it. His t-shirt—plain black, no frills—is straining pretty much everywhere, from his shoulders to his chest to—dear god—his tummy, where the fabric is pulled so taut that the indention of his belly button shows. And the whole thing is made worse by the obvious tightness of his jeans, which just pushes his little belly out further, over the straining waistband. 

Fucking Bucky. Steve cannot endure this shit. 

“Hey,” Steve says, slipping through the living room and into the kitchen, feeling like he needs to follow through on his whole getting a drink ruse. 

Bucky, for his part, doesn’t appear concerned by Steve’s presence, and just continues spooning ice cream into his mouth. “Hey.” 

Glass in hand, Steve comes back into the living room and picks up Bucky’s booted feet so that he can sit down on the end of the couch. Bucky doesn’t move to sit up, so Steve just drops his big feet back into his lap. He gives Buck shit about putting his boots on the furniture all the time, but Bucky seems disinclined to be barefoot anywhere other than in bed. Steve had actually wondered if Bucky wore his boots there, too, until one morning he’d seen Bucky putting them back on and realized that he did, at least, remove them for sleeping. 

“Can’t sleep?” Bucky asks, eyeing Steve as he shoves another bite of ice cream into his mouth. 

Steve shrugs, taking a drink of water just for something to do. “Guess not.” 

Bucky observes him for a minute, looking watchful but not uneasy. “Want some?” he finally asks, extending the ice cream in Steve’s direction. 

Steve peers into the container, which is nearly empty, and grins. “There’s none left, pal.”

Bucky tips the carton back toward himself. “Not true. There’s at least five spoonfuls left.” 

“You eat them,” Steve says, his voice sounding quiet even to his own ears. A little tentative, maybe. 

Bucky gives him a strange, considering look, and then proceeds to polish off the last few bites. He starts to lean forward, like he’s going to set the empty container on the coffee table, but stops, dropping his flesh hand to the side of his tummy with a little breathless ‘oomph.’ Like maybe he’s too full to move like that, like maybe he’s fuller than he expected. 

Steve inhales sharply, unable to stop it. 

Bucky sets the container down on the floor without getting up, then rests his metal hand on his belly, as well, pushing lightly against it. Watching Steve with his blue killer’s eyes the whole time. 

Steve swallows hard and wonders how much Bucky realizes. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky + pizza. Steve + guilt.

The situation with Steve is getting more intense.

Bucky isn’t trying to provoke it, but somehow Steve looks more and more wound up as the weeks go by. He gets flustered easily, and Bucky can’t quite put his finger on what it is that’s setting him off. Sometimes it happens when they’re out for dinner somewhere, and Steve will suddenly get tense, or awkward—he dropped his fork under the table _twice_ the last time they were at the little diner around the corner that Bucky likes.

Other times it seems to happen at home, when they’re doing something as mundane as sitting on the couch, maybe watching a movie from the list Sam provided them with to “catch up.” Halfway through _Scarface_ \--which Bucky liked because the violence was weirdly pretty, but also thought was ridiculous because there are much easier ways to kill someone than pretty much any of the ways that Tony Montana used, which made it a little unbelievable—Steve had suddenly been nervous as a cat and twice as jumpy. There was no reason for it that Bucky could tell, so he had offered Steve some of the Oreos he was eating, but Steve had just shook his head, looking sort of strangled. His loss, because Oreos are fucking great. They taste just like they always had, even when they were kids—unless you bought the weird fancy kinds they have now, the double stuffed ones or the kind with flavored filling, neither of which Bucky approves of—and it’s comforting, eating something that hasn’t changed one bit in seventy years. Bucky can go through an entire package of them, dunking them in milk as he goes. 

Steve also gets visibly flustered whenever he sees Bucky anywhere close to undressed, but that at least makes sense. Bucky had passed Steve in the hallway after a shower, towel around his waist, the other day, and Steve had just stopped dead, like Buck had hit him in the head with a mallet. The arousal factor was obvious—Bucky is good at reading these things, and really that’s only partially due to his tenure as the Winter Soldier, when sex was just another weapon in the arsenal. Before the war, he’d done it in the dance halls, with the dames, he knows. Knew how to read them, knew which ones would be willing to fool around. He has fuzzy memories of pressing pretty gals against the wall in dark corners, feeling them flush against him, breasts crushed tight to his chest. Or of walking them home, sliding a hand up their skirt in an apartment hallway, pushing aside drenched panties and sliding his fingers against them, inside them—or maybe, if he was lucky, if the dame in question wasn’t real concerned with propriety, going inside with her, laying her out under him and fucking her, slow and gentle if she seemed unsure, hard and fast if she didn’t. 

He even remembers a few rushed handjobs in back alleys with the fairies who worked by the docks—and, at least once, paying for one of those boys to get on his knees and suck him off. 

None of that seems to have prepared him for this thing with Steve, though. Steve, whose arousal hums at a low-grade buzz all the time and inexplicably spikes fever-sharp sometimes, intense and hot between them, the apartment suddenly feeling too small. Steve, who is Bucky’s best friend and his only real point of reference in the world, now. Steve, who always looks so fucking tortured when he looks at Bucky, like a century of grief has worn him thin. 

Bucky feels weird about all of it, and he wishes they could just fuck and get it out in the open, but he can’t, really, because he’s not sure what Steve actually wants. He wants Bucky—that much Bucky knows—but he’s not sure if that wanting makes Steve happy or not, if he’s ashamed or not. Based on what he can see on television—and sometimes on the street—being queer isn’t nearly the same sick secret it was when they were kids, but Bucky still wonders if maybe that’s what has Steve tied in knots. He wants to just force the issue, make Steve confront it, push him down against the bed or the wall or the couch and make him do what he obviously wants to do. That’s what the Winter Soldier would have done. See the opening and take it. But Steve is not the target, not anymore. And Bucky isn’t sure what the objective would be, if they did fuck. 

So instead things just roll along as they have been. Steve pretends he’s not eyefucking Bucky every second of the day, and Bucky pretends not to notice it. 

And he eats. A lot. Because he’s sort of bored, and he’s sort of hungry, and he’s never had enough to eat in his whole fucking life until now. 

*

Occasionally Steve leaves and goes to Stark Tower. He’s not actively Avenging right now, but he seems to at least attend meetings, or something. He goes over in the evenings occasionally, anyway. He always gives Bucky big mournful eyes when he leaves, like it physically pains him to go, and Bucky ends up waving him toward the door. Tonight is no different. 

Steve worries. Bucky gets it. He’s not quite sure what Steve is actually worried _about_ , though. Bucky’s a killer. Steve knows this. He is more than capable of taking care of himself without Captain America watching his six. Not that it’s not appreciated, but still. 

Unless, of course, Steve is worried about Bucky hurting someone, rather than being hurt. Which is an entirely different concern, and one that leaves a sour taste in Bucky’s mouth. Partly because he wants Steve to think better of him than that. And partly because it’s probably a valid concern. 

In any case, it’s not something Bucky wants to think about, so he orders pizza instead. A large with bacon and sausage, and then breadsticks too, just because. He uses the laptop, pecking away at the keyboard with the index finger of each hand to input the order. Fucking 21st century. It’s miraculous and terrible in equal measure. 

By the time the pizza arrives, Bucky is sprawled on the couch, using the remote to scroll through Steve’s Netflix account. And wow, there are a lot of fucking World War Two documentaries on Netflix. Jesus, do these people have some sort of obsession? There must be twenty on Hitler alone. 

Bucky scrolls up to a documentary about lions instead. Much safer. 

The first six slices of pizza go down easily, along with most of the breadsticks, and Bucky doesn’t even really think about it, just eats and watches the documentary, which is basically about some guy with a death wish who gets far too close to lions for safety or sanity. Bucky roots for the lions to jump up and snatch him out of his little Jeep, but it doesn’t happen. Too bad—the movie would have been much more interesting that way. 

When there are two slices of pizza and two breadsticks left, Bucky realizes, rather belatedly, that he’s pretty damn uncomfortable. The waistband of his jeans is digging into him, squeezing at his middle, and as much as he squirms around on Steve’s fluffy sofa, he can’t seem to get comfortable. 

He looks down at his tummy, planning to adjust the waist of his jeans, and he realizes, with some surprise, that he can’t actually _see_ his waistband. What he _can_ see is a few inches of belly, hanging over his jeans and pulling his t-shirt taut. Where the fuck did that come from? 

Whatever. He sucks his tummy in—which hurts, a little—and flicks open the button on his jeans. The soft roundness at his waist promptly expands forward, and it’s an instant relief. 

Bucky eats the last of the pizza and breadsticks slowly, panting a little by the end. He takes the last bite as the documentary ends, which is pretty fucking good timing and completely unplanned. 

When he hauls himself up off the couch and tosses the pizza box into the trashcan, his belly hurts quite a bit. He should probably just go to bed and call it a night. He’s clearly full, and probably should have quit eating before he had to undo his pants, Jesus. But—and god knows why—he opens up the freezer and peers inside, and yup, there’s a brand new carton of vanilla ice cream sitting there. He goes through them pretty quick, but more of them just magically appear. Fuckin’ Steve. He’s too good by half. 

Bucky doesn’t even bother taking it back to the couch, just grabs a spoon and stands there against the kitchen counter, spooning up bite after bite, until he’s put a pretty good dent in the carton. 

*

Bucky is used to his tummy looking swollen at night—he eats a lot, and he’s aware of it. Shit, most nights he curls up with his hand on his bloated belly, cradling it. He’s not oblivious. 

Still, it’s a shock the next morning, when he happens to catch a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror as he’s stepping into the shower, and his tummy is still swollen. 

He’s getting fucking chubby. 

He stops, turning back to face the mirror. His eyes are drawn to his middle as if by magnet. 

It’s round. The curve starts just under his pecs, and yeah, the only word for it is round. 

He reaches out with his flesh hand and pokes it, surprised by how easily the flesh gives, sinking in at his touch. He’s used to holding his belly at night, when he’s firmly bloated with food, his tummy like a little balloon under his sheets before he falls asleep. 

This—this is different. 

His tummy is _soft_. He can _pinch_ it. He turns to the side, looking at his profile. 

Huh. The Winter Soldier has a fucking beer belly. It’s funny, when you think about it. 

Well, shit. Bucky feels sort of stupid—he’s eating like he’s out on bail pretty much every night now, so what did he expect? And really, that’s exactly what his life has felt like, these last six months: being out on bail. Freedom feels funny. Tenuous, like it might disappear again. A little overwhelming. Weirdly boring. But the food is good. 

He looks at himself in the mirror—really looks, like he doesn’t usually bother doing. 

He’ll be goddamned. Is that a _double fucking chin_? 

No. No, not really. But maybe if he looks down? Shit fire. 

His arms and shoulders and chest are still broad and strong as ever, so there’s that still going for him. He skims his eyes down further, over his tummy and down to his hips, his thighs—and Jesus, how did he never look at the fucking full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door before? 

He looks fucking wide. Less like a finely tuned weapon—honed and taut everywhere. More like—well, just _wide_. He’d always sort of been built like that, thick and broad everywhere. Stocky, that’s probably the word. 

And now he’s fucking chubby. 

After he showers, he slicks his hair up into a messy knot and wraps a towel around his waist, tucking the ends together _under_ the soft pooch of his tummy and padding out into the hallway and toward the kitchen, where he can hear Steve banging around and smell bacon frying. 

“When were you gonna tell me I was gettin' fat, pal?”

Steve freezes, and when he turns around, he looks guiltier than Buck has ever seen him—which is saying something, since Steve is a proper Catholic and has an advanced degree in guilt. “Uh—what?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day, y'all. Have some unrepentant kink fic.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is shameless, and Steve reaches his breaking point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I write fic that has an actual plot, and character development, and a fully realized universe. This ain't one of those times. Just, you know, so you aren't disappointed when there's nothing here but kink.

Steve is a terrible liar. He is also fairly shitty at dissembling, misleading, or playing it cool. It’s something Bucky always used to make fun of him for, his inability to be anything but direct. Steve had always figured it was basically a positive, though.

Now, with Bucky standing at the edge of the kitchen, looking ridiculously good, all _wet_ and wearing a _towel_ , belly on display, asking Steve when he was planning on telling Bucky he was getting fat? And just staring at Steve while he fumbles for words? Now, Steve’s thinking he should learn to lie, quick. 

“You’re—uh,you’re not fat, Buck,” he says, feeling his cheeks already starting to turn pink. 

“I said _getting_ fat,” Bucky says, undeterred. 

Steve whirls back around to the stove, poking at the frying pan full of bacon in lieu of a response. He can’t hear Bucky’s footsteps—he can be dead silent, when he wants to be—but Steve can tell he’s moving closer, all the same. 

“You look fine,” he finally offers, not turning around. 

Bucky snorts, and yeah, he’s right up next to Steve all of a sudden. “What’s this, then?” 

Against his better judgment, Steve looks over at Bucky, and oh. Bucky has a little handful of smooth, chubby belly grasped between a metal thumb and forefinger, and he’s _jostling_ it in Steve’s general direction. 

Steve chokes on his own spit. “Jesus, Buck. You’re—you’re fine. You look—fine. Go get dressed, food’s almost done.” He glances up at Bucky’s face for just a moment, trying not to look like he’s begging. 

Bucky eyes him, metal hand still cupping the curve of his belly, and Steve feels like Bucky can see right through him. 

“All right, pal,” is all Bucky says, and Steve holds his breath, watching him walk away. 

*

When Bucky comes back out five minutes later, he’s wearing jeans that are clearly at least two sizes too small, and they aren’t even buttoned. Steve knows this because the henley Bucky’s thrown on is also too small, and it clings to his tummy enough that Steve can see where Bucky’s jeans are obviously unbuttoned and partially unzipped. 

So in terms of Stuff that Makes Steve Crazy, this is only a mild improvement over Bucky in a towel. 

“Here,” Steve says, handing Bucky a plate of bacon and eggs. Four eggs. A stack of bacon—a big stack. “There’s a bagel in the toaster,” he adds. “And cream cheese in the fridge.” 

Bucky collects his food, and Steve tries very hard not to watch as Bucky applies a heavy layer of cream cheese to both halves of his bagel and then licks the knife. 

He fails at not watching. 

His own breakfast might as well be sawdust, for all Steve tastes it. He’s too busy watching Bucky—watching as he methodically eats his food, first the eggs, then the bacon, then the bagel, like it’s an assigned task. It makes Steve a little sad, how _mechanical_ Bucky is in the way he approaches his meal, but Bucky doesn’t look unhappy. Just—focused. And it makes Steve feel a little better when Bucky pours himself a cup of coffee that is nearly half cream—the real stuff, not that non-dairy creamer shit people are so fond of in this century. Steve figures Bucky would only doctor his coffee up like that if he enjoyed it. 

He also dumps enough sugar into the cup that Steve’s teeth hurt. He’d always been like that—sweet tooth a mile wide before the war. He’d had the slightest little softness at his waist back then, too, invisible under his clothes. Even the shadow of a double chin sometimes, especially if he was looking down. Watching Bucky eat the way he has the last few months, Steve wonders if Bucky would have always been chubby, if he’d had the opportunity. 

Probably, Steve thinks, watching him smear cream cheese across another bagel and finish off the last of the bacon still sitting on the stove. Fucking Bucky. 

It’s strange, how simultaneously comfortable and weird it is to be rooming with Bucky again. On one hand, sharing living space with Bucky is second nature. They’d done it for years, before. 

But on the other hand, it’s not the same Bucky he’s living with now. Back before the war, living with Bucky was like living with a storm, a constant hum of energy that lit up the whole little apartment. Bucky was always _on_. his mouth always running, always grabbing Steve by the arm or around the shoulders, dragging him out to the dance hall, or down the street for a soda, or out onto the fire escape so that Steve could sit next to him while Bucky smoked, conscientiously exhaling downwind of Steve’s delicate lungs. 

Now, Bucky is mostly silent, his big blue eyes watching, always watching. Scanning every window, every door, every move Steve makes. That might be one of the reasons Steve likes watching Bucky eat so much—it’s one of the only times he doesn’t seem completely on edge. It’s peaceful, watching Bucky eat, even in that weird, mechanical way he has. 

*

About a week after Bucky’s apparent discovery that he’s getting chubby, Steve comes home from running errands to find Bucky doing one-armed pushups on the living room floor, and Steve nearly drops his little reusable canvas grocery bag. 

Bucky’s metal arm is pulled up, tight to his chest, and he’s supporting himself fully with his flesh arm. His track pants are tucked into his boots, and he’s fucking shirtless again. His belly—his soft, round, achingly perfect belly—is pulled down by gravity, looking bigger than it really is, jiggling just a little with each pushup, and Jesus Christ, this is all too much. 

Bucky finishes a set and rolls himself up into a sitting position, leaning back against the couch. “Hey,” he says, just the slightest bit breathless, chest rising and falling a little more rapidly than usual. 

“Hey,” Steve echoes, setting aside his bag of groceries and sinking down on the floor next to him. “Don’t let me stop you, Buck.” 

“Nah, it’s okay. I’m done, anyway,” Bucky says. He looks over at Steve and smiles a little, and it’s crooked but real. For a minute he looks a lot like the Bucky Steve has always known. 

Maybe that’s what makes Steve decide to do it. Or maybe he’s just been driven slowly crazy by six months of Bucky and food and shirtlessness. That’s a definite possibility. 

Whatever it is, Steve finds himself reaching out, poking a finger into Bucky’s round little gut, right into the flesh that pools over the elastic of his waistband. _Jesus_ , Bucky is _soft_. “No crunches, buddy?”

Bucky’s eyes widen, and then he chokes out a little huff of laughter. It sounds rusty, like an old hinge in need of oil, but it’s a real, honest to god laugh, and Steve loves it. “Thought you said I looked fine, Rogers.” 

“You do!” Steve exclaims, raising his hands up in a gesture of innocence. 

“Whatcha sayin’, then?” Bucky asks, and the way his accent drifts toward Brooklyn makes Steve’s heart pound. 

Steve looks at him, eye-to-eye. “Not a goddamn thing, Barnes.” 

*

Steve says they should go out for dinner, that he doesn’t want to cook and he’s sick of delivery. 

And that’s fine, although it means Bucky has to find something to wear—which is sort of an issue, lately, and it’s amazing how it took Bucky so long to realize he was getting fat, when one look at his wardrobe would have confirmed it. Pretty much nothing he owns is comfortable except his track pants, and they’re even getting snug, tight enough that the elastic leaves little red indentations on the softest part of his stomach, the little curve below his belly button. 

He ends up going with jeans that don’t button and a sweater that fits like a second skin. It’s not ideal, but it’s what he’s got. He uses a rubber band on the button of his jeans and manages to get them fastened, but the whole thing still looks pretty obscene. He likes the way it feels to have a big belly at night, when he’s stuffed and a little uncomfortable and it helps him drift off to sleep. Walking around smuggling a beer belly under his shirt in broad daylight is less pleasant. So he throws a black hooded jacket over the ensemble and hunches his shoulders a little bit. Better. He doesn’t exactly look skinny—just sort of blocky instead of undeniably chubby. 

They end up at the little divey joint Bucky likes, the one near Steve’s apartment that serves pretty much nothing but classic diner fare. It’s the kind of place that smells perennially of grease and salt, and there’s not a salad in sight.

Bucky orders the biggest burger on the menu, a basket of French fries, and a chocolate malt. He knows he probably shouldn’t—Christ, if your pants won’t fasten and they’re already digging into your gut, that’s probably your first clue that you don’t actually need all that shit. But—fuck it. He _wants_ it, and why the fuck shouldn’t he have it? What does he have to stay in shape for, now? Why should he have to do a goddamn thing he doesn’t want to do? 

He’s done enough of that for several life times. 

Steve’s expression is a little funny when Bucky orders, but before Bucky can really decipher it, Steve just hands his menu over to the waitress and says, “Same for me, please,” flashing his pretty boy smile at her, a tractor beam of shiny teeth and honesty. 

Steve talks a little while they wait for their food, filling Bucky in on various Avengers, talking about how he’d like to have everyone over to the apartment soon for dinner. Bucky listens, nodding in the right places and sucking Coke through his straw. 

There’s a lot of reasons he likes being with Steve—a _lot_ , like more than he could probably list—but one of the best reasons is how Steve doesn’t seem to mind that Bucky doesn’t hold up his end of the conversation anymore. It’s hard, finding words. The asset wasn’t expected to speak much, and after so many decades, Buck’s out of practice. His silence makes people uncomfortable, mostly—he knows, he can tell by how they react to him. Steve never seems to have that issue, though. He just looks at Bucky like he hung the moon, like just being there is enough. 

It’s easy to be with Steve. 

When their food comes, Bucky digs in immediately. The burgers are huge, a half pound of ground beef on an enormous, grease-shiny bun, topped with bacon and cheese. The basket of fries is literally a basket—he and Steve easily could have shared one order and it would have been plenty. 

By the time Bucky has worked his way through the burger and most of his fries, his tummy feels taut and round, and he’s very, very aware of the fact that he’s using a rubber band to hold his jeans together. 

“Want these?” Steve asks, and before Bucky can answer, Steve is dumping most of his own fries onto Bucky’s plate. 

“Uh—you don’t want those?” Bucky looks up, and Steve, weirdly, looks guilty as hell. 

“Nah, take ‘em,” Steve says. 

Bucky blinks. Looks down at the new mound of fries on his plate and back up at Steve. 

Steve—blushes?

Bucky scans Steve’s eyes. Pupils dilated. Heartrate almost certainly elevated. Flush moving down from his cheeks to his throat, and down past the vee of his collar. 

What the fuck is Steve playing at?

Most of Steve’s malt is still in his glass, melting. Bucky finishes his own, watching Steve all the while. Waiting. And—yup, there it is—Steve pushes his own malt across the table. 

“Finish that, pal. I don’t wanna waste it.”

Don’t wanna waste it, Bucky’s fat ass. 

“Oh yeah?” Bucky raises an eyebrow, but reaches out and takes the glass. 

Steve just stares, and Bucky obligingly takes a long pull, thinking stupidly that Steve’s lips had been wrapped around this straw, the one that is currently in Bucky’s mouth. 

Steve fuckin’ Rogers. 

He finishes the malt and moves on to the fries. Looks up at Steve every now and again, just to check in on the man, and yeah, Steve still looks like he might as well have a sign over his head that reads I Am Sexually Aroused. 

When there’s only a handful of fries left, Bucky stops. He could finish them, but—but he wants to test a theory. One that, really, Steve has already proven, but Bucky is _thorough_ , because Hydra trained him to be. So he pauses and exhales, shifting in the booth. His tummy hurts, bloated and sore, and he feels like he’s ready to pop, so he’s really not lying when he leans back, rests his gloved metal hand on his distended gut. 

“I think I’m out,” he breathes, eyeing Steve as he speaks. 

Steve—the wily fucking pervert—blinks innocently and says, “Oh, finish ‘em, Buck, no rush.” 

Bucky leans forward a little, the better to give Steve A Look, and Jesus, he is really fucking full, and it’s kind of uncomfortable. “Why do you want me to finish them, Stevie?” 

Steve gives Bucky full on Captain America face, earnest and wide-eyed as a fucking schoolgirl. “No reason.”

Bucky snorts, obligingly stuffing a couple of French fries into his mouth. “No reason, huh?”

Steve shrugs, blush rising again. 

Bucky takes a few more bites, chewing deliberately and watching Steve the whole time. Slurps down the last of his Coke, not even remotely surprised when Steve pushes his own soda—a Sprite, which is kind of gross, but whatever—across the table to him. “No reason,” he murmurs, purposely squirming around a little bit, like he’s so full it’s hard to move. It’s only partially a performance, honestly. He’s eaten a _lot_ , and he feels swollen and kind of sore, weirdly heavy. “Nothing at all you’re getting out of this?”

“Watching you eat French fries?” Steve scoffs a little, calling Bucky’s bluff. Captain goddamn America, and he’s lying like a goddamn rug. Bucky _knows_ it, knows this is driving Steve up the fucking wall. 

“How come you gave me all your fries, then?” Bucky asks, shoving the last of them in his mouth and licking grease off of his fingers. “How come you go to the store every two goddamn days to buy me ice cream, when I know you don’t even eat it? How come you blush like a virgin every time you see my gut?” 

It’s probably the most words Bucky has said in a row in weeks, this little diatribe, but he doesn’t feel worn out from it, like he usually does when he has to have a conversation. Instead he feels weirdly exhilarated. He wants to play with Steve, wants to further this weird little game that’s sprung up between them. It’s brand new and familiar all at once, sparring with Steve like this, one-upping each other. 

It’s _fun_. 

“It’s not—I don’t—I don’t _blush_ ,” Steve says, his pink cheeks making a liar of him immediately. 

“You’re blushin’ right now, sweetheart,” Bucky says, the endearment falling out of his mouth before he really considers it. 

Steve blushes harder. 

“But if you say it’s all nothin’, then okay,” Bucky drawls, sucking down the last of Steve’s Sprite even though his tummy hurts. “And here I thought it was something. Thought I’d tell you I wanted to go home, get that ice cream you always buy me out of the freezer, have dessert.” He shifts again, pressing his hand deliberately into his belly, watching as Steve’s eyes lock on it over the table. “But it’s nothing. So I won’t.”

Steve looks physically pained, and Bucky almost feels guilty for a minute, watching Steve squirm. He almost opens his mouth to say something, to try to play it off as a joke, give Steve some kind of out, when Steve—brave, reckless little fucker that he is and has always been—squares his stupidly broad shoulders and says, “Fuck’s sake, Bucky. C’mon, then. But I’m gonna feed it to you, you fuckin’ tease.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is nervous, Bucky is not, and our heroes cuddle like it's 1939.

When they step out onto the street, Steve feels like he can’t quite catch his breath, like he's a kid again and his asthma’s acting up. _This is happening_. Whatever this is. Bucky. Him. Ice cream. Jesus.

Every impulse in him is screaming to grab Bucky’s arm and drag him home as quickly as possible, but Steve reconsiders when he looks over at Bucky. 

Bucky looks _full_ , like every step is a little uncomfortable. The curve of his tummy is visible under the fabric of his jacket, and he’s not even trying to suck it in—which Steve has noticed is a thing Bucky does now, sometimes, when they’re out. But not right now. Steve is pretty sure that Bucky couldn’t do it if he tried, at this point. He’s already breathless, gloved hand clamped to the side of his belly. 

“You sure you can eat ice cream?” Steve says, leaning close to Bucky’s ear, slowing his stride to match Bucky’s. He wants to reach out and take his hand, but he isn’t sure what the rules are, where the boundaries lie, so he settles for being near enough that their elbows brush. 

Bucky huffs. “’Course I’m sure, Rogers.” 

*

When they get back to the apartment, Bucky shrugs out of the jacket and flops onto the couch, stripping the glove off of his metal hand. He plops his boots down on the coffee table and lies back, looking so bloated and hedonistic—and beautifully, breathtakingly gorgeous—that Steve can barely stand it. 

“You gonna get that ice cream?” Bucky asks, not bothering to open his eyes. 

“Are you using a rubber band to button your jeans?” 

The left corner of Bucky’s mouth turns up ever so slightly; it’s almost unnoticeable, except that Steve notices everything about Bucky. Bucky reaches down and tugs at his waistband a little, shifting. “What’s it to you, Rogers?” 

“Nothing.” Steve lingers in the doorway for a minute, watching Bucky’s round little gut rise and fall with each of his shallow breaths. “You should undo it, though, if you want ice cream.” 

Bucky grumbles and tugs the button free, rubber band and all. Steve can’t quite stop his own intake of breath when Bucky’s tummy shifts forward, the zipper audibly sliding down. 

When he comes back with the ice cream and a spoon, Bucky hasn’t moved at all—he’s just lounging there, looking indolent and comfortable and not the least bit nervous that his best friend is about to shovel ice cream down his throat. 

“Hey, pal,” Bucky says. He doesn’t lift his head from the back of the couch, but his eyes track Steve’s movement across the room. “You all right there?”

Is Steve all right? He’s—he’s _nervous_ , is what he is. He’s had sex. Natasha might think otherwise, but she’s wrong. He’s had sex. During the war and in this century. But—but he hasn’t had a lot of it, and he hasn’t ever done something like this, something that he wants so badly that his hands are nearly shaking with it, something that makes him feel like he’s about to burst into flames with wanting. 

He’s never done anything with Bucky. 

Steve nods, sinking down onto the sofa and prying the lid off the ice cream. He peers inside, and there’s maybe half the carton left. “You’ve already eaten half of it,” he says, stating the obvious. 

“Don’t act surprised, bud. You replace that shit every time I finish one.”

“Every two days,” Steve murmurs, scraping up a spoonful of ice cream. He lifts it up a bit and then hesitates, not sure how to proceed, but Bucky just looks at him and nods, his eyes soft and wide. 

“Go ahead, Stevie.” 

It’s all the consent Steve needs, and he presses the spoon between Bucky’s pretty pink lips, soft and incongruous against his hard Winter Soldier self. 

Bucky licks the spoon clean and waits, watching Steve calmly. When Steve’s hand shakes a little as he spoons up another bite, Bucky reaches out, his flesh hand landing lightly around Steve’s wrist. “Hey. It’s okay. You’re okay.” 

Steve blinks, feeling embarrassed that Bucky’s having to comfort him, embarrassed that he’s this affected by what they’re doing. It shouldn’t even be that big of a deal—it’s fucking ice cream, for god’s sake. It’s not even explicitly sexual. 

Except it _is_ , and they both know it. Bucky just seems much less fazed by it than Steve. 

He takes a deep breath, steadies his hand, and spoons another bite into Bucky’s mouth. And another. And another. With each one, he feels a little more confident, a little less like he’s about to rattle apart from nerves and wanting. And Bucky—Bucky just eats, accepting every bite Steve spoons up, eating with the same efficiency he always displays now. His eyes are sharper, though, trained on Steve. 

Eventually Bucky groans a little, shifting and putting both hands onto his round belly and squeezing a little, rubbing it. Steve keeps feeding him, but his attention is on Bucky’s tummy, which looks seriously swollen, like he can’t possibly be comfortable. 

“Does it hurt?” Steve asks, still feeding him steadily. 

Bucky shrugs one shoulder, rubbing his tummy a little more firmly. “Yeah—ate a lot tonight.” 

“You look like you’re about to pop,” Steve blurts, starting to blush as soon as the words are out. 

Bucky just breathes out a soft little groan of laughter, his eyes still glued to Steve. “Yeah? Think I should quit?”

Steve looks down at the container of ice cream, which is nearly empty, and shakes his head. “Finish this.”

“Thought you were worried I’d bust,” Bucky sasses, swallowing another bite. 

“You’ll make it,” Steve says, directing a particularly full spoonful into Bucky’s mouth. “Couple more left and you’re done.”

Bucky nods, panting a little but obediently taking the last few bites. 

Steve sets down the empty container and just _looks_ , lets himself stare his fill at Bucky. Bucky, who has his head thrown back against the back of the sofa, both hands wrapped around his swollen gut. Bucky, who looks like seven kinds of sin, glutted and unapologetic. Bucky, who has one eye open and is peering at him, looking a little amused. 

“Well, Rogers. Now what?”

Steve blinks. “We’re out of ice cream.” 

“Christ, that’s probably a good thing,” Bucky says, cradling his tummy. “I can hardly breathe.” 

Steve starts to reach out, wanting so badly to put his hand on the fat little ball of Bucky’s belly. He can’t quite bring himself to do it, though; it’s such an intimate thing, in ways Steve can’t quite explain. More intimate, somehow, than any of the sex Steve has had, either before or after the war. 

“Touch it, Stevie. I know you want to,” Buck says, managing to sound nonchalant, like it’s a totally normal thing to want, to want to touch your best friend’s fat belly after you’ve stuffed him senseless. 

Bucky sounds so calm and easy about it, though, that it puts Steve at ease somehow, too. In that moment, Steve realizes for the first time exactly how Bucky had been able to get his hands up the skirts of half the women in Brooklyn, back before the war. Not because he was handsome—although he was, of course. Not even because he was particularly charming—although he’d had that in spades back then, too. But no, it wasn’t any of that. It was this, this easy way he had that made you feel like everything was okay, like it was okay to want something, to indulge in it. 

Steve reaches out, then, and rests his hand lightly, so lightly, on the grey cotton of Bucky’s sweater, where it’s pulled taut over his tummy. 

Bucky inhales, shifts a little so that he pushes his belly up against Steve’s hand. “It’s okay, pal,” he breathes, and Steve believes him. Slides his hand under Bucky’s sweater and then just goes for it, reaching out with his other hand, too, and tugging the sweater up, exposing Bucky’s warm, round belly. 

Bucky’s gut is firmer than he expected, stuffed full with everything he’s shoved down his throat tonight—and, uh, then the stuff _Steve_ has shoved down his throat. When Steve had poked him the other day, teasing him about doing crunches, his belly had been soft, but now it feels taut, like a balloon. At least, it feels that way until Steve works his hands down to the bottom curve of it, where the flesh is still striped with red lines from Bucky’s too-tight jeans. Here his tummy is soft, all pinchable chub that Steve can’t resist jostling a little, just for the sheer joy of seeing it bounce. 

Steve feels like he could get lost in this, rubbing Bucky’s belly, tracing the curve of it, hefting it in his hand to feel the solid weight of it. He can feel Bucky’s eyes on him, though, and he looks up, blushing.

“You gonna take me to bed, Rogers, or just sit here all night getting handsy with me?” 

“Didn’t know you’d be that easy to get into bed,” Steve shoots back, relishing the comfort of their shared antagonism. 

“Didn’t know you’d be such a weird fucker,” Bucky says, looking pointedly down at Steve’s big hands cupping his gut. 

Shit. “You started it, buddy.” 

Bucky snorts, leaning over until he’s flush against Steve’s side. “How exactly did I start it?”

“You—you ate a carton of ice cream every two days for a month, Bucky! Jesus."

Bucky laughs. A full, actual laugh that warms Steve’s heart. “The fact you think that counts as starting something says it all, Stevie.”

And before Steve can respond, Bucky’s kissing him. His metal hand is on the back of Steve’s neck, gently tugging him down, and he tastes like ice cream, sticky sweet, his mouth still a little cold. It’s a little awkward—they’re sitting side by side, and Bucky seems unwilling—unable?—to move much, so unless Steve straddles him, they can’t really get too serious about this. It’s just slow, lazy kisses, leaning into each other, Steve’s hands still grasping Bucky’s belly. 

Bucky’s the one who finally pulls back, and Steve feels so dazed that he can’t quite figure out what to do next. Bucky looks at him for a moment, big blue eyes watching, scanning him for something, before he says, “c’mon, pal.”

In the bedroom, Bucky strips his sweater off and sits down, leaning forward with a grimace to unlace his boots. His little tummy pools forward, looking even fatter as he bends over it, breathless. An image flashes in Steve’s mind of Bucky much bigger, big enough that he can’t really reach his boots, belly grown too big for him to reach over without panting, and Steve swallows hard. Fuck.

Once his boots are off, Bucky lies down on the bed slowly, like he’s still so full he has to be careful. It makes Steve’s dick lurch, watching the way Bucky moves, all careful and ginger, like his exposed belly is tender, and Bucky watches him like he knows it, knows exactly what Steve is thinking and what is turning him on. 

Steve whips his own shirt off without much care, dropping it aside and following Bucky onto the bed. “Want these off?” he asks, tugging at the open waistband of Bucky’s jeans. 

Bucky nods, lifting his hips a little to help as Steve works the denim down to expose thick thighs. When Bucky’s down to just a pair of boxer briefs, Steve can’t help but pull back and admire him for a moment. He’s gorgeous, filled in and soft again, thick through the middle, from chest to hip just solid and stocky, capped off with a swollen tummy. His face has filled out, too—just like always, he carries weight in his face easily. He’s all cherub cheeks and a blurred jawline that shifts into an actual double chin if he looks down, a baby-faced killer.

“You too,” Bucky says, tugging at Steve’s jeans. Steve doesn’t hesitate, stripping out of them quick and lying down. Bucky gives him another one of those little lip curling half smiles he’s been doing tonight, and then they’re kissing again, more intensely now. With a purpose, like they both know it’s going somewhere. 

Steve throws a leg over Bucky’s thighs, tangling them together. Eventually, he keeps making his way over until he’s all the way on top of Bucky, leaning down over him to find his mouth, when Bucky grunts a little underneath him. “Watch the belly, huh? It’s sore, champ.”

Steve pulls back, looking down at the swollen little belly between them. “You want to get on top of me?” he asks.

“God no. Too full for that,” Bucky says, pulling him into another kiss. “Just don’t lay on my guts, okay?”

They kiss until their lips are sticky with ice cream spit and Steve is panting, desperate to grind his cock somewhere—anywhere—on or near Bucky. 

“Come up like this,” Bucky says, moving Steve’s big body around like it’s nothing, positioning him straddled over Bucky’s hips. “Gonna make you feel good.” 

Bucky retrieves the Astroglide from Steve’s bedside table, pulling open the drawer with his metal hand and rummaging around until he finds it, like he just assumes Steve keeps lube there. Which is an accurate assumption.

Steve is still, letting Bucky take the lead as he shoves down the front of first his own underwear and then Steve’s. Steve grinds down a little, and Bucky thrusts up, and then—shit—their cocks are touching, and Steve feels like his brain is about to short out. 

Bucky watches him with his sniper’s eyes, like he knows everything Steve is thinking, and he dumps lube out onto his hand and then—Christ—wraps his flesh hand around both of their cocks, holding them together, stroking up, twisting. The angle isn’t perfect—as technique goes, Steve could certainly jerk off faster and more efficiently alone—but the _feeling_ is perfect, Steve’s cock sliding slippery and hot against Bucky’s. 

Steve braces himself with one hand above Bucky’s shoulder and lets the other one grab onto Bucky’s soft side—his love handle, that’s the appropriate term and that’s exactly how Steve is using it—and just clings, feeling like he can’t catch his breath. He’s tense already, the buzz of an approaching orgasm tingling at the bottom of his spine, and it’s going to happen fast, embarrassingly fast. Bucky strokes a little more firmly and pants, “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

And just like that, it is okay, and Steve comes, hard, watching his own come land on Bucky’s belly. Bucky jerks him through it, keeps it up until it almost hurts, and then comes himself, eyes drifting shut when his orgasm hits him. 

Steve wants to flop down on Bucky but doesn’t, sliding off to the side in deference to Bucky’s full belly. 

“You’re a mess,” Steve says, dragging a finger through the cooling mess splattered across Bucky’s middle. 

“You started it.”

Steve finishes it, too, fetching a warm washcloth from the bathroom and cleaning them both up, sliding the warm fabric over Bucky’s distended tummy gently, Bucky’s eyes on him the entire time. He’s silent—like always, now—but Steve can tell he’s relaxed, spent and full, and it makes Steve want to purr with contentment, to see Bucky at ease like this.

Steve wonders—worries—that Bucky will go back to his own room, but he doesn’t. Just eventually pads into the bathroom and then returns without a word, crawling into Steve’s bed like it’s his God-given right to sleep there. And it is, of course—they shared a bed a lot before the war, would push their little twin mattresses together every winter and huddle together. It was for warmth, ostensibly. That was always what they said. But that didn’t explain why sometimes, even in the summer, when Brooklyn was so hot it was almost unbearable, Bucky would still slip into Steve’s bed, just to be next to him. 

Now, just like then, Bucky slides in behind Steve and manhandles him a little bit, rearranging him like a doll until Steve’s on his side and Bucky is spooning him, one arm thrown over Steve’s broad chest. It feels different than it had before the war, when Steve had been so small. The ratio is different, their bodies fit together differently. Bucky’s big tummy fits perfectly into his lower back, a warm round presence that feels so comforting Steve can’t help but press back into it. 

“You feel good,” he mumbles. “This. This feels good.”

“Like home, huh?” Bucky says, and Steve knows that home doesn’t mean a place but a time. 

Steve nods, though Bucky won’t be able to see it in the dark. “Always liked it when you held me like this.” Steve reaches an arm back and pats Bucky’s tummy lightly, just a couple of gentle taps. “You were skinnier then, but you still had a little pooch you’d press up against me.” 

Bucky is silent for a moment, and Steve swears he can feel him raising his eyebrows against Steve’s shoulder. “Really?”

“Yeah. Felt warm. Safe. Still does.”

“So you’ve always been a kinky little shit, then.” 

Steve snorts. “That’s not what I said. I just—you were always a little soft, before. Before the war. I’m glad it’s back.”

“Good.”

*

Steve makes pancakes the next morning. He doesn’t even think about it, just slips off into the kitchen while Bucky’s still sleeping and makes enough pancakes to feed a small army. 

Bucky appears in the doorway, looking sleepy and rumpled in track pants and an undershirt. His boots are on, which hurts Steve’s heart a little, but otherwise he looks relaxed, morning-soft and a little sweet, if mostly incommunicado supersoldiers with metal arm attachments can look sweet. Steve thinks yes, they definitely can. 

“Hungry?” Steve asks, and as soon as the word is out he can feel a flush rising to his cheeks.

Bucky just nods, coming in and fixing his coffee like always, creamy and sweet, more like dessert than a beverage. 

Steve takes the liberty of fixing Bucky’s plate, giving him an enormous stack of pancakes and a couple of sausage patties. He hands it over, and then loses a minute watching Bucky carefully apply butter not just to the top of the stack, but in _between_ each pancake, slathering it on generously before dousing the whole buttery mess with a flood of syrup. He eats the pancakes, then the sausage, and then refills his plate and repeats the entire process. Steve manages to eat his own breakfast while he watches, shamelessly eyeing the way Bucky’s undershirt clings to the fat around his middle, the way his belly button is clearly outlined. 

Bucky looks up at him occasionally, but doesn’t bother talking. His mouth quirks up in the corner, though, whenever he catches Steve looking. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky eats too much. That's pretty much the whole thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is nothing here but sweet, comforting feedist trash. If that's your bag, then please join me in the dumpster.

Bucky Barnes is a showoff.

His memories from before the war are blurry, but he can recall, sometimes, the way it felt to charm a girl, make her laugh, spin her in his arms, cock his hat at a jaunty angle and swagger over to her. 

He can remember, a little bit, the way it felt to rescue Steve from some back alley brawl, and how good it felt to take control that way. 

And then—well. HYDRA had given him missions, and it had been his job to complete them as he saw fit. And he often saw fit to jump from buildings, leap into traffic, and otherwise make a scene. 

So. Bucky knows that he has a bit of a thing for attention. Steve even told him that back in grammar school, their first grade teacher had informed Buck’s mother that he “was a troublemaker because he wanted all eyes on him.” Steve had laughed as he’d told the story, eyes full of affection and most certainly all on Bucky. 

Given all of this, it’s not really a surprise that since The Ice Cream Incident, Bucky has been eating like it’s his job. Steve likes it. Steve can’t keep his eyes off of him when he does it. Bucky is already the center of Steve’s world—he knows this the way that he knows the sun rises in the east and the sky is blue—and on a day when he’s on his second meatball sub and third can of Coke at lunch, propped up at the kitchen table, panting, Steve’s world shrinks to nothing more than Bucky. He is not just the center; he is everything. Bucky is pretty sure that the world could fall to ashes around them and as long as he shoved another handful of chips into his mouth, Steve would just stand there, gazing at him like he hung the moon. 

So Bucky _eats_. He eats Oreos and king sized Hershey’s bars. Graham crackers. Cupcakes Steve brings home from a little frou frou bakery. This cheesecake that Bucky discovers in the frozen food section of the grocery store where every slice is a different flavor. Boxes of Chinese food—spicy kung pao chicken, beef and broccoli, container after container of fried rice, egg rolls, wontons. Convenience meals, whole frozen lasagnas that he can pop in the oven and then methodically consume whole over the course of an evening. 

He eats until his belly hurts, until his jeans don’t have a hope of fitting, until he lives in track pants that dig into his chubby sides, itch and dig at his chunky waist even though he wears them slung under the blubbery curve of his lower belly, where the skin has grown soft and so, so sensitive. 

And through it all Steve just watches, wide-eyed and panting after Bucky. It’s a heady feeling, to have so much of Steve’s undivided attention. 

Bucky still isn’t sure of the objective of this game they’re playing. They haven’t—technically—fucked yet. They kiss, hot and slow and lazy, on the couch and in bed and once, memorably, up against the wall in the kitchen. They swap handjobs, sometimes slow and painstaking, other times fast and rough, almost agonizing in their intensity. And Steve touches Bucky’s belly, rubs it and pinches it and pokes his long, pretty fingers into Bucky’s increasingly fat tummy. 

Sometimes it feels like the atmosphere in the apartment is nearly aflame, crackling with a sexual tension that is only marginally eased by handjobs and frotting and frantic adolescent kisses. It feels like something has to give, like a wire stretches between them, taut and razor-thin, pulled a bit farther with each day, each bite, each ounce that Bucky packs onto his thick frame. 

*

It all comes to a head—finally—one evening when Steve is at Stark Tower, doing something or other. He would tell Bucky about it, Bucky knows, if Bucky ever encouraged that line of conversation at all. Bucky doesn’t. He doesn’t want to get involved, doesn’t want to have anything to do with any of it. He knows that at some point there will be a conversation about it—what does he want to do? Would he join the Avengers? And a part of Bucky thinks he should. Thinks he owes them his time, his effort, his supersoldier abilities, as if he could ever repay his debts to the world or atone for the sins he was forced to commit. 

But another part of him—the larger part—doesn’t give a shit about any of it. Doesn’t want any truck with politics or government or the greater good, by anyone’s definition. He wants no ideologies, no dogma, no rhetoric about what must be done. He wants, mostly, Steve and good food and to sit on his ass. So he does.

On this particular night, Steve says he’ll be gone for a few hours, and he kisses Bucky on the cheek as he heads to the door, like Buck is some housewife he’s leaving behind for the evening. “Have fun, sugar,” Bucky tells him, playing up the part and winking at him, just for the fun of watching Steve break into one of those ray-of-light smiles, like Buck is the best thing he’s ever seen,. 

As soon as Steve’s gone, Bucky orders pizza. It’s probably his favorite thing, food-wise. It’s not the _best_ food he’s eaten since he’s been here with Steve, or the fanciest, not by a long shot. But it’s good. Simple. Bucky orders a large sausage, bacon, and pepperoni pie, along with a large order of breadsticks, which has become his go-to order. At the last second he throws in a two-liter of Coke, because he used the last can of soda in the house to make an ice cream float with his lunch. 

The guy on the phone says it’ll be forty minutes, which seems like an awfully long time, and Bucky ends up nosing through the kitchen for snacks. Steve, bless him, keeps it incredibly well stocked, like he’s providing for a football team instead of himself and Bucky. 

Bucky ends up finding a box of Twinkies and a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. He eyes the box of Twinkies for a minute before shrugging and grabbing the entire thing, taking it and the chips back to the couch. 

He starts with the Twinkies. He tells himself he’ll only eat a couple, but even he knows it’s a lie. If he’d only wanted a couple, he wouldn’t have brought the whole box back to the couch. 

The thing about Twinkies, anyway, is that they’re really not very big. Three bites, maybe four if he’s being conservative. They go down quickly, easily. And they’re good, sweet and fluffy. Soft. 

He doesn’t even feel full when he plucks the last one out of the box. Just happy, tingling with that little low-caliber thrum of pleasure that he gets whenever he’s eating like this. 

The chips are sort of an afterthought, just something to do with his hands while he waits for the pizza. The salty-sharp flavor of them is a perfect antidote to the sticky sweetness of the Twinkies, and he ends up eating them mindlessly, crunching through handful after handful while he watches _Orange is the New Black_ on Netflix. He doesn’t get all the jokes, and he thinks Chapman is a bitch, but he likes Taystee, and Red’s accent is strangely soothing. He’s pretty into it—this episode the prisoners are chasing a magical chicken or some shit—and he’s legitimately surprised when he hits the bottom of the bag. 

About the moment he realizes he’s just consumed a box of Twinkies and an entire bag of chips, his pizza arrives. 

So here’s the thing. Yeah, he’s eaten a lot, kind of, already, but he’s not exactly stuffed. He’s pretty full, but his belly doesn’t hurt or anything. It’s a little bloated, but if he’s being honest with himself, his tummy is sort of permanently bloated lately. So maybe looking down at empty junk food wrappers and a soft, fat belly should give him pause, but it doesn’t. He just answers the door, pays the guy, and drags his food back to the couch. 

The first half of the pizza goes down easily, and he chases it with long pulls from the bottle of Coke. His tummy aches now, heavy and hard in his lap, but it still doesn’t exactly hurt. The elastic of his waistband is cutting into him, and he can’t quite get comfortable, but it’s not _painful_ , per se. 

The second half is harder. His tummy keeps gurgling, and it’s hard to take a deep breath. He stops putting the Coke on the floor and props it against the couch cushions so that he won’t have to bend over. 

There is no sane reason to keep eating. He knows that. His henley—which had already been stretched tight over his fat middle, clinging to his belly button and prone to riding up over his love handles—has worked its way up, exposing a couple inches of wobbly lower belly. He feels hot, fat and uncomfortable. He should stop. 

But he doesn’t. He has no idea why, but he doesn’t. Instead he just keeps going, methodical and steady, like it’s his job. Like his handler told him to.

He’s not crazy, no matter how anxious Steve gets sometimes, looking at him. He knows he doesn’t have a handler. He knows stuffing himself like a pig, eating until he’s gasping and swollen, isn’t his mission. 

But there’s something about it that’s soothing, like following orders, all the same. The routine of it. The strangely alluring challenge. 

Plus food tastes fucking good, and do you think the fist of fuckin’ HYDRA got very many decent meals? No. No he did not. So Bucky’s not about to squander the opportunity to make up for it. 

When he gets the last bite down, his tummy is throbbing. He looks obscenely bloated, like a cartoon character who swallowed a watermelon. 

Fuck. He tries to catch his breath, but he can’t inhale fully, just short little pants punctuated by occasional hiccups. His poor distended tummy bounces with each one, and he’s pretty well miserable, really.

He rubs his tummy gingerly, wincing, and nearly cries in relief when the hiccups fade. It’s small comfort, though. He still _hurts_ , his poor belly churning. He’s hot, a little sweaty, sticky and fat and miserable. 

That’s when Steve opens the front door. 

Bucky is curled up in the fetal position, cradling his big belly, and Steve skids to a halt just a few steps into the living room, staring. 

“Hey,” Bucky says, because he figures he should speak even if he can’t bring himself to sit up—or even find the energy to try to tug his shirt down over his gut. 

“Hey, Buck. You okay?” Steve’s voice is weirdly gentle, like he’s afraid Bucky might be having some sort of episode. 

“Full,” Bucky grunts. “Hurts.” 

Steve is beside him instantly, kneeling down next to the couch. “Poor baby,” he murmurs, like this is a thing that happened to Bucky, rather than a thing that Bucky did to himself. 

Bucky blinks up at him, and fuck, Steve looks so concerned, like he’s just beside himself that Bucky has a fucking belly ache because he’s a fat ass with no self control. 

Steve reaches out a hand and lays it on the crest of Bucky’s belly. He’s careful, but Bucky still hisses at the contact. 

“Shh, sweetheart, I got you.” Steve’s voice is a soft little singsong, like Bucky is a sick child. “Can you sit up?”

Bucky shrugs, squirming around and heaving himself upright. “Fuck. Ate too much, Stevie.”

“I see that, pal,” Steve says, eyeballing Bucky’s fat belly—which looks even fatter now that he’s sitting up and it’s being pushed forward. 

Steve sprawls onto the couch next to him and pulls Bucky flush against him. “Want me to rub it?”

Bucky nods, feeling embarrassed for the first time since they’ve started this. Finishing everything had seemed like a grand idea, but now he regrets it a little, feels silly and overfed next to Steve and his my-six-pack-is-visible-through-my-shirt body.

“What’d you eat?” Steve asks, gently pushing and rubbing into Bucky’s bloated gut. 

“Pizza,” Bucky says. “And breadsticks.”

“And Twinkies?” Steve asks, looking at the empty box and wrappers on the floor. 

“And the chips,” Bucky agrees. “And Coke.”

“No wonder you have a stomachache,” Steve says, shaking his head. 

Bucky closes his eyes, drifts a little on pain and the feeling of Steve’s firm, strong hands on his stuffed belly. 

He loses probably half an hour, not exactly asleep, just resting, letting Steve take care of him until he feels better. Steve rubs his belly like a champ, gradually pushing a little harder, pressing out some of the pain. His fingers move carefully over the top of Bucky’s stomach, where he’s stretched the tightest, and push in harder along the bottom roll, where he’s soft and flabby even now, as swollen and full as he is. And they work, Steve’s big hands. Bucky’s breathing evens out, and he starts to feel like he isn’t panting, like he hasn’t just sprinted up a few flights of stairs. 

“Poor baby,” Steve mumbles, still kneading and rubbing at Bucky’s gut. “Think you can make it back to the bedroom?”

Bucky nods, happy to let Steve take control, put him to bed.

And Steve does, walking slowly beside Bucky as Bucky cradles his stomach with both hands. 

Steve helps him undress, too, laying him down on the bed and pulling off his boots, tugging hard to get Bucky’s too-tight track pants over his fleshy hips and thick thighs. “How’d you even get in these things, Buck? They’re way too tight.”

“You callin’ me fat?” Bucky jokes weakly. 

Steve lays a big hand on Bucky’s lower belly and squeezes lightly. “I’m saying you need some new pants, pal.” Steve grins. “And calling you fat. But I like it.”

“Weird bastard.”

Steve pulls at Bucky’s henley until Bucky grudgingly raises himself up enough for Steve to tug it over his head, grumbling the entire time.

“You ate an entire box of Twinkies and a bag of chips as an appetizer, sweetheart. Who’s the weird one again?”

Bucky’s too full and fat to try too hard, but he smirks a little. “I did it for you, baby, ‘cause I know it gets you off.”

“Not when you’re hurt,” Steve immediately protests, shucking his own jeans and pulling one of his ridiculously small shirts over his head and tossing it toward the hamper. 

Bucky nods. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” He reaches down, poking a metal finger into the soft fat of his lower belly. “I was just really hungry.”

Steve gets a look in his eye, and Bucky hides a smile. Fucking kinky bastard. 

“Next time don’t eat so much we can’t fool around. Kinda puts a damper on things, Buck.” Steve gives him his best earnest Captain America voice. 

Bucky snorts. “You think I can’t fool around?”

“I think if you move you’ll explode,” Steve says dryly. He climbs into bed and very carefully rolls Bucky onto his side. 

“You’re gonna be the big spoon?” Bucky says, feigning indignation when truthfully he kind of liked the feeling of Steve maneuvering his big body. 

“Shh,” Steve says, not taking the bait. He just throws an arm over Bucky and grips his belly, rubbing. “Sleep it off, pal.” 

Bucky’s almost asleep when Steve adds, “I’m taking you clothes shopping tomorrow. That shirt is indecent.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello there, penetrative sex and minor metal arm kink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently it took me roughly 17K words to come to terms with the Civil War trailer and that life ruining red henley they crammed Bucky into. I swear, this fic has been my antidote for all Civil War and Bucky-related anxiety. Thanks for indulging me.

As it turns out, Bucky manages to avoid clothes shopping for weeks. Steve gets busy with the Avengers—something something, a threat, something something, national security, it’s all very tedious and Bucky practically claps his hands over his ears and hums whenever Steve mentions it, because no, he does not want to participate and no, he does not care—and then _Bucky_ gets busy, which Steve is downright shocked about. Although he hates to admit it, Steve had gotten used to thinking of Bucky as a bit of an invalid, and it is surprises him when Bucky starts to function a bit more. He settles into an easy, if unconventional, friendship with Natasha, and they hang out—without Steve!—on a regular basis. After he quizzes Bucky, Steve learns that they mostly play chess and order Chinese food.

Steve couldn’t be prouder of Bucky if he were a kindergartner who made a friend on the playground.

The upshot of all this busy-ness, though, is that nearly a month passes, and Bucky still doesn’t have any new clothes. 

What he does have is probably ten additional pounds, most of which seem to have landed around his broad waist and big belly. 

None of his jeans have a chance of fitting, and he ambles around in straining sweatpants, the waistband slung low under his tummy. His t-shirts cling to his softer chest and the prominent bulge of his gut, and even his underwear are too small, leaving angry red marks on his hips where they cut into him, lovehandles spilling over. 

It’s all driving Steve crazy. For months now they’ve been in this weird place, not quite together, at least not officially, but definitely more than friends. Yet they aren’t _actually_ fucking, just swapping hand jobs like teenagers, and they are _ninety goddamn years old_. 

They don’t really talk much about what it is they’re doing. Honestly, they don’t talk about it at all. The food, the kissing, Bucky’s rather spectacular weight gain over the last few months. It just…happens.

It’s the happiest Steve’s ever been. 

“We’re going shopping,” Steve says one morning, fixing Bucky with Serious Captain America face over the breakfast table. He hasn’t necessarily been dying to force the issue, but the time has come. If this goes on any longer, Bucky is going to explode out of last pair of sweats—and Steve is just going to explode, period.

Bucky looks up from his third enormous bowl of Lucky Charms. “For what, pal?” He reaches down to his side and tugs at the hem of his t-shirt, and Steve can’t see it, but he bets it’s ridden up to expose an inch or two of the soft roll that he carries on either side of his waist. 

“For clothes that fit you,” Steve says grimly. 

*

Bucky gestures for Steve to join him in the dressing room, and Steve only hesitates for a moment before he ducks inside, saying a silent little prayer that no one is taking a cell phone video of Captain America disappearing inside a changing room with a very chubby, very attractive, very stabby-looking stranger. He isn’t opposed to coming out—would take Bucky to the fucking White House and hold his hand at a state dinner, if Bucky would deign to make such a public appearance, which he absolutely would not—but he’d prefer to do it on his own, with a little more class than to be caught in a dressing room with his Not Technically Boyfriend. 

But does that mean Steve is willing to miss the opportunity to watch Bucky try on clothes and potentially struggle to button them over his newly grown tummy, his recently thickened thighs, his perfect little lovehandles that never used to be there? No, no it does not. There is precious little that could make Steve miss this show. 

So he follows Bucky into the little room and shuts the door behind them, locking it carefully. Bucky gives him one of those big-eyed, hard-to-read gazes he’s so fond of these days, and his left eyebrow quirks minutely. It’s almost nothing, but Steve knows what it means—Bucky is a little amused, a little turned on, and a lot aware of exactly what sort of filth Steve is already cooking up. 

Damn Bucky. He can read Steve like a pulp novel. Always could. 

“What’d you get me?” Bucky asks, stripping off the glove from his metal hand and tossing it onto the little chair in the corner of the room. 

Steve hands over a stack of jeans first. “I wasn’t sure—uh, what to get—I got a couple different sizes,” Steve says. 

Bucky nods once, and Steve admires his double chin as Bucky sorts through the stack. He ends up grabbing the smallest pair Steve selected, a pair of dark wash 34s that Steve would bet his eyeteeth won’t fit. He had only picked them up as a sop to Bucky’s ego, in case it might matter. (It was hard to say, since he and Bucky aren’t talking about any of this, just _doing_ it, frotting all over each other and jerking off like kids while Bucky eats his weight in junk food because they are ridiculous failures at being grownups.) 

Bucky tugs off his sweatpants, and Steve admires the fact that Bucky’s Sweatpants Removal Process includes wriggling his hips and shimmying down a little, the pooch of his tummy jiggling adorably, because the sweats are way too tight to just come off smoothly like they should. 

“Look at that,” Steve breathes, reaching out across the small space and tracing the red, indented line on the side of Bucky’s tummy where the elastic waistband had been digging into his skin. “All those marks, Bucky, and –“ Steve stops on an inhale, tracing his index finger farther across the edge of Bucky’s belly to his side, where two angry red lines are marching up the soft roll of fat at Bucky’s waist. 

“What?” 

“You have—you. Um, you got stretch marks,” Steve says, swallowing hard. “Right here. On your side.”

Bucky twists around to look, and the movement makes the soft flesh on his upper ribs crease. Steve swallows again. 

“Well, shit,” Bucky says, not sounding all that alarmed. 

“It’s cute,” Steve says quietly, running his fingers over the marks. 

“Fucking deviant. Captain America is a fucking sexual deviant.” Bucky’s voice is low—low enough, Steve hopes, that no one else in a nearby stall can hear him—and gentle, like “fucking sexual deviant” is some kind of term of endearment. 

“Keep your hands to yourself, Steve, let me try these on.” 

Steve blinks, tearing his gaze away from Bucky’s marked-up love handle and looking seriously at the jeans in Bucky’s hands. “There’s no way those are gonna fit,” he blurts out. 

Bucky raises an eyebrow and gives Steve A Look. “What’re you sayin’, bud?” 

“You’re too fat for those jeans, is what I’m saying,” Steve says, not even trying to pretend he’s not grinning. He reaches out and gives Bucky’s tummy a solid little slap, gentle but still firm enough to resonate. “No way.”

Bucky’s lip curls in reciprocation. It’s not a full grin, not like a Captain America smile, or even a pre-WWII Bucky Barnes smile, but it is _enough_ , and Steve melts under it. “If you knew they weren’t gonna fit, why’d you pick them up?” 

Steve ducks his head a little bit. “Didn’t want to make you feel bad?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Steve, I ate an entire pan of lasagna last night and then you fed me ice cream. Like a lot of it.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know how you felt about it,” Steve says weakly, scanning Bucky’s face. 

Bucky snorts. “You jerked me till I came all over my own gut, Rogers. How do you think I felt about it?”

“Willing to do it for me?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Steve. We ain’t all as noble and self-sacrificing as Captain Goddamn America.” Bucky’s words are harsh, but his voice isn’t. “You bring any jeans back here that I can actually get over my goddamn thighs?”

Steve blushes and grins harder, wordlessly handing over a pair of 38s. Bucky checks the tag and clucks his tongue, like Steve is a wayward and recalcitrant child of whom no better can be expected. 

The jeans fit. “Whaddya think, pal?” Bucky turns to face Steve, barefoot and shirtless, new jeans looking crisp and spanking new. 

Steve reaches out and sticks two fingers under the waistband, tugging a little. There’s quite a bit of room—he could, maybe, have gone with 36s. “Got a little room,” he says. 

Bucky doesn’t say anything, but Steve has grown remarkably fluent in speaking Bucky Face. This particular expression is a very clear, “bitch, please.” 

“A little room is probably a good thing,” Steve ventures.

“Living with you, it won’t last long,” Bucky mutters, rooting through the stack of shirts Steve has brought back and shrugging into a pretty blue and gray flannel. 

He turns back to Steve, gesturing mutely at the buttons, and Steve immediately obliges. Bucky can do very close work with his metal hand—the cybernetics are amazing, and he once told Steve that he could embroider a very nice sampler with those terrifying metal fingers—but he doesn’t like to do it, doesn’t like the sensation of manipulating the metal appendages using fine motor skills. While it’s possible to do fine work, the arm is better suited, Steve gathers, for ripping shit apart. 

So Steve buttons Bucky’s shirt for him, working from the chest down. 

It gets to be a bit of a strain when he hits the top of Bucky’s tummy, and by the time he gets even with Bucky’s belly button, little snatches of belly are exposed between the stressed closures.

“What size is this?” Steve asks, buttoning the bottom two just for the hell of it. 

Bucky shrugs, and Steve grabs the tag, flipping it so they can both see it. Large. “Guess your tummy is an extra large, pal.”

“Whose fault is that?” Bucky asks, tugging the shirt over his head and proceeding to root through the stack again. 

Steve feels his cheeks burn a little. “If you don’t want to do this, Bucky—“

“Relax,” Bucky interrupts, his voice muffled from the shirt he’s pulling on. “You think I’m gonna complain about eating whatever I want and rubbing off against Captain America every night?” His head emerges from the shirt and he pulls it down. Another fucking henley. Red, even. Steve didn’t choose this one himself—Bucky must have picked it out special. Steve looks Bucky up and down. This shirt—unlike the one Bucky’s been wearing for months that has been driving Steve to distraction with the way it clings to every extra ounce Bucky carries, the way it pulls tight over his soft pecs and outlines the round curve of Bucky’s tummy, the way it folds and pulls over the rolls at Bucky’s sides, the way the slightest move makes it slide up and expose Bucky’s soft underbelly—fits. The thing is, fits is a relative term. It _fits_ , in that it doesn’t look like a second skin, and Buck could probably even raise his arms without exposing his tummy. But it doesn’t disguise any of Bucky’s size, this new shirt. If anything, it accentuates it, how wide he is, how achingly fucking thick. 

Steve is staring. “Get that one,” he says. 

Bucky gives him another one of those almost-blank looks, blue eyes impossibly wide in his soft, handsome face. “Okay,” he finally says. “But I’m keeping the old one, too.” 

Jesus Christ.

*

That night, Steve makes spaghetti and meatballs and watches Bucky park himself on the couch and inhale four plates of the stuff, eating with his usual mindless efficiency, like it’s his job to work through the entire huge batch. 

He’s wearing brand new track pants—which are still tucked into his boots, but at least look like they fit comfortably and aren’t about to cut him in half—and a new t-shirt. He looks relaxed, strands of hair pulling free from the messy bun at his nape and falling forward, framing his chubby cheeks. 

He looks fucking gorgeous, and Steve can’t take his eyes off him. 

When Bucky’s finally finished, setting aside his plate with a sweet little “oof,” like he’s suddenly realizing how much pasta he’s consumed, Steve wants to just climb all over him, grind against him and come in his pants like a fucking teenager. And—Jesus—that’s basically what they do most nights, although sometimes they actually progress to handjobs instead of just desperate, ridiculous leg-humping. 

Tonight, though, Bucky seems to have other ideas, and when Steve stands up to take Bucky’s plate to the kitchen, Bucky reaches out and grabs Steve’s hand, using him as leverage to pull himself up off the couch. 

“Rogers, you ever gonna let me take you to bed?” Bucky says, one eyebrow cocked up just a little, a ghost of a smile digging at the corner of his mouth. “Or you one of those girls that just keeps a guy at second base forever?”

Steve stumbles, and Bucky calmly pulls Steve up against him, until Steve can feel Bucky’s ball of a belly pressed up against his own abs. Jesus—it’s overwhelming, all of it. The feel of Bucky, stuffed full and warm against him. The sound of Bucky’s voice, husky and teasing, the way it sounds in Steve’s memory from so long ago, a lifetime ago. 

The idea of it, of finally, finally fucking. 

Bucky doesn’t seem bothered by Steve’s silence, just smiles a little more and adds, “I need to make an honest woman of you first or something?”

Steve rolls his eyes, getting with the program. “Been waiting on you, Buck.”

Bucky responds by tugging Steve backwards, towards the bedroom, his metal arm heavy on Steve’s lower back, moving him effortlessly. 

When they get to bed, Bucky shucks his shirt and lies down, pants and boots still in place, resting his hand under the curve of his bloated tummy, cradling it. Steve crawls up beside him, just looking. He’ll never get tired of looking at Bucky, just staring at him, feeling that weird sort of awe that it’s really him, that he’s really here—a feeling he’s been having, to varying degrees, since the day he saw the Winter Soldier for the very first time. 

“Well, pal, how you wanna do this?” Bucky asks, pulling Steve over to him and down into a kiss. It’s gentle, a little lazy, and when Bucky bites down on Steve’s bottom lip and then sucks it into his mouth, Steve gasps. 

“Uh—“ Steve mumbles against Bucky’s mouth. “Want, want you inside me.” And he does, god, he does. He wants to fuck Bucky, too—wants to put Bucky on all fours, push into him from behind and reach around, hold onto Bucky’s big belly, push into and against Bucky’s big, solid body. He wants so much. But tonight, right now—tonight he wants Bucky inside him. 

He can feel Bucky’s smile against his own lips, and then, almost before Steve can realize it, Bucky’s flipped them over, so that Steve is on his back and Bucky’s on top of him, pinning him against the mattress, and _fuck_ , Steve is gasping, breathless from the sexy, perfect shock of it. He’s trapped under Bucky’s big body, held in place by Bucky’s unyielding metal arm, hard and awful and completely at odds with his body, which is thick and substantial but _soft_. The two aspects of Bucky’s body, flesh and metal, are at odds and incongruous in a way that should, maybe, be grotesque, but isn’t anything but overwhelmingly, earth-shatteringly hot. 

Bucky leans forward a little, kisses him slow and thorough, in that same weirdly mechanical, technically proficient way he has when he’s plowing through plate after plate of food. His full, swollen tummy rests against Steve’s abs, soft and heavy at the same time. 

Bucky pulls Steve’s clothes off of him systematically, shirt over head, pants down legs, looking intensely focused on the task, and Steve can’t do anything but watch, writhing a little under Bucky. 

Steve isn’t surprised when Bucky dumps lube into his flesh hand and preps Steve with that same methodic, precise approach that he uses with everything these days. He’s gentle, watching Steve’s face carefully as he works, blue eyes intent. When he pushes against Steve’s prostate, Steve shudders, and Bucky promptly adds a second finger, eyes never wavering. 

By the time he’s three fingers deep, Steve is keening a little, rocking shamelessly against Bucky’s hand, and Bucky is making soft little “shush” noises, like Steve is hurt or something, like Bucky has to comfort him. 

“Please, Buck, please,” Steve finally whispers, barely coherent, and Bucky immediately pulls his fingers free, leaving Steve to gasp with the sudden emptiness of it. 

“Shh, shh, shh, you’re okay,” Bucky whispers, and Steve pulls his knees up even higher, feeling exposed and empty, frighteningly vulnerable, completely naked while Bucky’s still half-dressed, still has his goddamn boots on and just has his pants shoved down his hips far enough to pull his cock out and slick it up. 

“There,” Buck says, like he’s doing Steve a favor when he lines his cock up and presses forward, rolling his hips hard against Steve. It isn’t rough but it’s unyielding, and Steve pants, feeling hot all over at the sudden intrusion, so much more that Bucky’s fingers or his own. 

It _hurts_ , and Steve can’t quite catch his breath, but Bucky just waits, braced over him, until Steve feels himself start to relax. 

When Bucky does start to move, it takes Steve’s breath away. The sensation of being so fucking full, of having Bucky’s cock sliding into him, is part of it, of course. But it’s equally overwhelming to be _under_ Bucky like this, Bucky’s big body covering Steve up, making him feel small, somehow, even though nothing about Captain America is small. 

Steve lets himself feel that way, though, wraps his arms around Bucky’s broad waist and grips his lower back, reveling in the way he can grasp ahold of Bucky’s pudge and hold on for dear life. 

“So good, sweetheart,” Bucky mumbles, and shit, there’s something about those words, the casual praise and the endearment, the easy intimacy of it, that makes Steve writhe in pleasure, snap his hips up even though there’s really nowhere for him to go, pinned against the mattress the way he is. His dick is trapped between his own belly and Bucky’s, the hardness of his own body and the enveloping softness of Bucky’s, and _fuck_ , Steve doesn’t even try to reach down and grab his own cock. Just closes his eyes and lets himself feel everything Bucky’s doing, lets himself thrust up against Bucky’s big, full belly. 

He cries out when he comes, Bucky’s name over and over, like it’s all he can think of in the world, like his whole experience has boiled down to Bucky, Bucky, Bucky. 

And it does, really. Everything that counts. Everything that’s real. 

Bucky. Bucky. Bucky. 

*

_One Year Later_

Bucky’s laughter is low but warm, a soft little grace note punctuating the louder, more boisterous conversation between Clint and Nat. Every time Bucky’s little chuckle floats into the kitchen where Steve is dishing up apple pie, he smiles a little. 

He carries Clint and Nat’s plates in first, handing them each a slice. They’re cuddled up together on the loveseat, Natasha looking more relaxed than Steve’s ever seen her. 

“You want ice cream on yours, Buck?”

Bucky gives him a look, considering. He looks fucking good, leaned back on the couch, boots up on the sofa, big belly shamelessly front and center, stretched taut under the weave of his red henley—the third incarnation of the shirt, now, and looking noticeably tight around Bucky’s gut. It’s a fairly recent purchase, Steve knows, but it’s definitely pulling tight around the middle. Bucky notices Steve looking at his gut, asshole that he is, and cocks an eyebrow at Steve, giving him a filthy look. “No ice cream _yet_ ,” he says. “But make it a big piece, huh?”

Natasha snorts, and Bucky and Steve both ignore her. 

“Have I ever brought you a small piece of pie?”

“Maybe during the Depression,” Bucky says seriously, and Steve rolls his eyes. He knows for a fact that Bucky doesn’t even remember the Depression. He just learned about it, after the fact, like everyone else wandering around in the 21st century. 

Fucking Bucky. Steve ends up bringing him a slice that is basically a third of the pie, and Bucky just grins at him when Steve deposits it onto the ridge of Bucky’s belly. 

He’s not really quite fat enough to balance anything bigger than a beer bottle or a can of soda on his belly yet, but Steve still likes to tease him about it. Bucky doesn’t mind—he even made Steve watch a documentary about otters that he found online, telling Steve that when he got a little fatter he could eat just like they did, with his food perched on his gut. Steve, predictably, had nearly shorted out from arousal, and Bucky had spent a couple weeks giving Steve shit about his “otter boner,” prompting Steve to insist over and over that it had nothing to do with otters and everything to do with Bucky’s belly.

Bucky eats with the same methodical singlemindedness as always, working through the apple pie as if it’s a task to complete. Steve knows he’s happy, though. Even if Buck’s version of happiness is a little too quiet, a little too mechanical. It’s still happiness. And it’s enough. 

Later, when Clint and Nat leave, actually _holding hands_ , which is something so pedestrian that he can barely believe Natasha is allowing it, Bucky gives Steve a big, shit-eating grin from his perch on the sofa. “Can I get that ice cream now? Maybe the last piece of pie?”

Steve obediently fetches both, returning with the pie tin in one hand and the carton of ice cream in the other. 

“Vanilla ice cream and apple pie.” Bucky gives him a soft look, peering up from under his lashes. “Steve Rogers, even your dessert is All American.”

“You complaining?” Steve asks, pulling a face. “You bored with vanilla?” 

“Nope,” Bucky says, drawling out the word and popping the ‘p’ like a snotty kid instead of the century-old war-hero-slash-super-assassin he is. He shifts on the couch, palming the side of his gut and calmly letting Steve spoon a bite of ice cream into his mouth. 

“Because I will buy you whatever flavor you want,” Steve continues, talking mostly just for the sake of it as he settles in beside Bucky, not planning to get up again until both ice cream and pie have disappeared down Bucky’s throat. “They make pretty much anything you can think of.” 

Bucky bites down on the spoon and shakes his head in an emphatic no, moving the spoon and Steve’s hand back and forth with him for emphasis. “Nope,” he repeats. “You and your plain vanilla are good.” 

All things considered, an endorsement of vanilla ice cream is not a declaration of love. Steve’s not sure he’ll ever get one of those, not from Bucky, not in this century. 

But it’s good. It’s enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous thank you to those of you reading, and an extra special dose of love for folks who left me comment or kudos love. You really have no idea how much fun it is to hear from you guys, here or on [tumblr](http://www.missjanedoeeyes.tumblr.com).


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